pretty feet

I always wanted to be beautiful.

I remember looking at beautiful women as a little girl and hoping, just hoping that one day I would be as lovely. I read magazines in middle school, wondering how to attain the “perfect look”. I felt stunning on my wedding day knowing I was loved and chosen, wearing a beautiful dress, with my hair done, and professionally applied make-up.

As the years go by and the flower of youth begins to fade, it is the love that remains. I resent our culture for saying I can’t grow more beautiful with age.

That is a bold-faced lie.

I know that is a lie every time I read about God giving beauty in exchange for ashes. What brings ashes into our lives but the brokenness of life? The more years we live, the more ashes we sift through, giving us more opportunities to see God’s loving redemption.

More years, more ashes, more beauty.

Don’t we read about being beautiful in Isaiah?

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!'”. -Isaiah 52:7

I have never really considered feet to be one of the more lovely features of anatomy. Feet often stink. Feet are frequently filthy.

I am not sure I have ever described someone by telling a friend, “Do you remember my friend Jane, the girl with the beautiful size nine feet? She usually paints her toes pink?”

I don’t think it’s what our feet look like that make them beautiful as much as what we do with them.

It is with our feet that we follow.

The word gospel means good news. You can’t live the gospel without following Christ. Christ usually leads us to a place of sacrifice.

To really be beautiful, we will have to live the good news. To live the good news, we will have to live beyond our blemishes, wrinkles, and less-than-perfect cheekbones.

The road to beauty starts all the way back in Eden, where God only made good things, where the beauty of His creation pleased Him. Sin caused our insecurity and the need for all kinds of cover-up.

The road to security and beauty is the road to the cross.

Oh, friends, can’t we learn that our beauty doesn’t make us worthy of love? Can’t we remember that it is God’s love that makes us beautiful?

Go ahead, tell someone today that she is God’s beloved, beautiful creation. Watch the beauty unfold. Even if she doesn’t believe it’s true, she will hope that it could be true. Even if she doesn’t believe in God, she will wish for a Creator who loves her just as she is, who died for her so that He could be with her.

That may be the first step toward true beauty for her.

Let true beauty reign!